Rosemary Grapefruit Bourbon Smash

I’m about ready for spring as everyone else, but I realized over the weekend that I haven’t taken advantage of all the gorgeous winter citrus that’s out there right now. I’ve had these two grapefruits sitting in my fruit bowl in the kitchen for like a week-and-a-half, so I figured it was about time to make something with them.

And by something, I mean cocktails. That’s what juicy grapefruits are for, in my opinion.

I’ve seen a lot of great fruity + herb cocktails recently, and so I bought a cute little rosemary plant at the grocery store the other day and whipped up a little rosemary simply syrup. Definitely make the syrup earlier in the day–or the day before–you plan to make these cocktails because it’ll need to cool after simmering on the stove.

The simple syrup can be made with fresh or dried rosemary. I went with dried (found in the spice/seasonings row of the grocery store) because my little plant only had three sprigs. And I obviously needed all of those for photos. It looks real sad now. Totally worth it.

I usually lean towards sweeter cocktails–how shocking–but this is definitely on the tarter side. You’ll need some grapefruit juice (fresh is the best!), simple syrup, bourbon, and club soda. You can start with about 8 ounces of grapefruit juice and kind of adjust it from there. Less sweetener, more sweetener. Less bourbon, more bourbon. It’s all good.

A Rosemary Grapefruit Bourbon Smash is an easy cocktail full of grapefruit and rosemary flavor. (Adjust sweetness and bourbon based on your preferences.)

Ingredients

rosemary simple syrup

(enough for about 6-7 drinks)

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp rosemary leaves

for one drink:

8oz grapefruit juice (fresh preferred, but bottled works too!)

2 oz bourbon

1.5 oz rosemary simple syrup (add more if you like 'em sweet)

2 oz club soda

Instructions

for the simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently until sugar has dissolved. Let the mixture simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until reduced by half. Remove from heat and let it cool completely before using.

for each drink

Fill each glass halfway with crushed ice. Add the grapefruit juice, bourbon, and simple syrup. For the club soda, I wrote that you'll need two ounces per cocktail, but that's really just an estimate. Basically you can just use it to top off each glass.

you know the way to my heart! rosemary is my FAVE. and i have just been getting into grapefruit recently (mostly inspired by some burt’s bees grapefruit face wipes, OMG. highly recommend). i’ve made rosemary syrup before and added it to soda water for a nice herby soda, but BOURBON? yes. get me some of that.